Grant Fisher of Grand Blanc, Mich. became the seventh prep in history to break four minutes in the mile Thursday night at the Festival of Miles in St. Louis, Missouri.

By: Johanna Gretschel for MileSplit

Sorry, Fisher fans.

The secret is that there is no secret.

In an exclusive interview with the four-time national champion's private coach, Mike Scannell, MileSplit got bits and pieces of Fisher's regular training routine. But no split times or tempo paces.

"He runs a lot slower than you might think," Scannell said. "I don't say times because as soon as you put that on the internet, kids go and see it and think that's what they need to do.

"There's no secret formula."

Not even sub-four minute miler Matthew Maton, who became just the sixth prep in history to eclipse the elusive barrier in April, has captured the national imagination the way that Grant Fisher has intrigued the public over the past two years.

Part of it is a nearly flawless record. The Grand Blanc, Mich. senior, headed to Stanford next year, has not lost a high school race since 2013. That track record encompasses an impressive range - he has won two national titles in the mile as well as back-to-back Foot Locker National Cross Country crowns. But can he be considered truly great if his stats still read 4:01 after graduation, especially now that Maton beat him to the task?

Fisher himself was unavailable for comment on this story, as he travelled to the Festival of Miles in St. Louis, Mo. On Thursday night, he will race the Men's Professional Mile versus Jordan McNamara, the defending champion with a 3:52 best, among others.

Ever since Alan Webb ran his astounding 3:53.43 in 2001, becoming the first prep since the 1960s to break four minutes, national media tasks the top prep milers with topping the feat each year.

Scannell claims that the number is not on their minds.

What does sub-four mean to you?

"Nothing," he said. "Every time I say that, people go crazy but it's not a big deal. We don't come to run times, we come to win. We are going to Festival of Miles to run a mile. If he gets under four, we're gonna celebrate like everyone else. It's a race and it's not a race against a clock, it's a race against a bunch of guys who also want to beat him."

Going to the Well

Grant Fisher won the 2014 adidas Dream Mile in 4:02.02. Coach Mike Scannell says he did just two hard quarter-mile efforts before the race.

So sub-four doesn't mean anything. But numbers do matter and Scannell says he knows exactly how fast all of his athletes can and will run in a workout or race situation.

Scannell, a coaching veteran for 20 years, brings a portable lactate analyzer to track workouts to test his athletes' blood lactate levels. The tool enables coach and athlete to pin down exact paces for steady-state tempos and lactate threshold efforts.

"High school boys are notorious for saying, 'I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine,' when they're really going to the well," he said. "That's the way you can tell."

But Fisher does not go to the well very often at all.

Below is an excerpt from a week of Grant Fisher's training this spring:

DAY	WORKOUT
Monday	Recovery Run
Tuesday	Steady-state tempo run between 3-5 miles
Wednesday	Recovery Run
Thursday	6x1000m
Friday	Recovery Run
Saturday	25x Hill Repeats (20-25 second incline)
Sunday	Long Run - 12 miles

Scannell somewhat infamously told Jeff Hollobaugh for the Mercury-Times that his athlete did no speed work in preparation for his 4:02 win at the adidas Dream Mile last year, or either of his Foot Locker championships.

The difference between mile-paced intervals and pure "speed work" is about five to 10 percent - or, the difference between "comfortably hard" and going to the well.

Fisher trains at 60-second 400m pace, so speed work entails quarters at 54 seconds to 57 seconds.

In 2014, he did just two workouts at that level. One workout before his Dream Mile victory and one workout before his runner-up finish at USATF Junior Nationals, which was a qualifying meet for the IAAF World Championship; both times, he ran just two quarters.

Grant Fisher finished runner-up in the 1500m at 2014 USATF Junior Nationals to qualify for the IAAF World Junior Championship.

"For me, speed work is the last stuff in the training process," Scannell said. "He only did 2x a quarter at a very aggressive speed and that's all there is to it. I could see how taxing that is on the body, so I cut it off at two because the deeper you tax, the longer you recover. For me, there is no sense in going to the well in training and then trying to get another training session in."

This year, Scannell estimates that Fisher has completed about four workouts like that already with no more than one per week.

"There's a very specific reason for that," he said. "Speed work kills. We monitor injury very closely. I monitor these guys very closely. You start really tweaking the ligaments and tendons and adding a great load to the muscles."

This while training at a regular load of 45 to 50 miles per week, which is relatively light compared to other elite distance runners. All of those miles are completed at a very specific pace, especially the steady-state tempo runs, which are always - "always" - completed within two seconds of the prescribed lactate threshold pace.

"Training is a very technical thing," Scannell said. "People think he just puts on shoes and runs fast. People have no idea the standard training we do and how controlled it is."

"There's 1,000 Grant Fishers out there right now"

Scannell tried to stop coaching in 2011.

He had already quit once, in 1995, after a stint as the triathlon coach at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Co. The runner was coaxed back into coaching at his local high school, Grand Blanc, when the young kids wanted to train with this old guy still clocking sub-15 minute efforts at 5k road races. His star was Omar Kaddurah, a three-time All-American in high school who set the Michigan state record for 1600m (4:07).

Scannell planned to move away from the sport after Kaddurah graduated. Kaddurah himself moved on - after a brief career at Georgetown, he graduated early to enroll in medical school.

"I was going to quit," Scannell said. "[But] Dan Fisher, who was a friend of mine, had a son who was in eighth grade who played soccer."

Scannell promised his former Arizona State University track teammate that he would stick around. But he didn't expect much.

"Nobody could have imagined that Grant Fisher could have been this fast. There's 1,000 Grant Fishers out there right now," he said. "He was nothing special. He was the fastest kid in his middle school, but who cares?"

Who cares, indeed. Fast-forward four years this weekend and that five-minute eighth-grade miler broke Kaddurah's Michigan state meet record this past weekend in 4:00.28. Fisher's indoor 4:03.54 ranks U.S. No. 4 All-Time, despite the fact that his fall precluded three or more steps inside the infield. Technically, that move would preclude a disqualification.

Scannell is no longer a sub-15 minute weekend warrior and would rather not talk about his own running exploits.

"Don't you have any other questions?"

But the run, in fact, is where many of the Fisher-Scannell heart-to-hearts take place.

"I can comfortably run a six-minute pace," he said. "If they go on a long run, I can do that, but that's about it. We talk about stuff when we're warming down a lot. That's 90 percent of the time when we discuss stuff."

That's how he knows, for instance, that tonight's race at the Festival of Miles will feature Fisher at his most sharp since winning the mile at New Balance Nationals Indoor in March. The senior ran U.S. No. 4 All-Time in that race, clocking 4:03.54, despite disastrously tripping on the rail in the final curve.

"When he changed gears that final time on the backstretch there, it sent goosebumps - chills - up my spine," he said. "That's championship racing. I don't need to see the last 30 meters, I got everything I wanted out of that race."
 

UPDATE -

Grant Fisher finished third in the professional race at the Nike Festival of Miles on Thursday. Fisher ran 3:59.38, the exact mark Matthew Maton ran when he broke four minutes. Watch Fisher's race here.